A Close Study
by TheLocket
Summary: It began with Chocolate Cake. A Delicate Situation ensued. There was a Closet Affair, everything was All Locked Up. Join Draco and Hermione for the final tale in their story.


A/N: This is the fifth and finally story. Enjoy!

Most sane, rational people look forward to Friday. To the masses of students, faculty, and others who work a five-day week, Friday represents a break in the monotony, the promise of 48 hours of freedom from the dull repetition of classes, assignments...

I tried to pretend that I, like all the other students around me, was simply excited for the coming weekend. That the reason I counted the hours, watched the second hand tarry around the face of every clock, obsessively completed every assignment so nothing could sap the precious hours of my weekend – that all this was a simple, innocent, school-girl-longing for Saturday.

This I attempted unsuccessfully. For every time a bell rang, every paper completed, ever check on my To-Do List brought me closer to my rendevous with Draco Malfoy. Each time this event loomed closer, I could feel myself flush, the rush of adrenalin due to an emotion between fear or excitement.

So, naturally I was jumpy almost constantly. Thus, when Harry cornered me and asked innocently, (too innocently, I thought) "So, Hermione, are you excited for Friday?" I naturally jumped about five feet out my chair.

"Friday?" I attempted sound nonchalant, which came out more strangled than I had expected.

"Yeah," Ron replied. "Friday. It's gonna be great!"

Where they mocking me?

"What are you guys talking about?" My voice was unnaturally shrill, causing many Gryffindors to turn from their breakfast of toast and eggs to stare. The boys similarly were startled by my screeched inquiry.

"Hogsmeade. This Friday," Ron replied, speaking slowly. I sighed internally. Of course. Hogsmeade Honeydukes Candy. And, for Ron, every trip offered the tantalizing possibility of seeing Madam Rosmerta.

"I can't go," I lied slowly. Of course Draco would be taking me there. My heart thumped uncomfortably – was it out of fear that he wouldn't, or fear that he _would_?

"Why?" asked Ron.

"Homework," I replied, and stood. I knew the boys wouldn't follow me to check that I was actually going to the library – they believed me – but I went there anyway. It was the perfect, quiet place to think.

I seated myself comfortably in the far corner, where I could sit at the wooden tables and observe all those around me, a studious sentry. A few glances up from the Potions book I was reading ascertained that third year Edwin Mahoney (Hufflepuff) and second year Rachel Goldwin (Ravenclaw) were sneaking off to a study room for a different kind of education; Madam Pince was blissfully unaware that sixth year Theodore Blakely from Slytherin was scratching dirty words into a desk in his corner of the library; Draco Malfoy strode into the library and stopped at the desk to return a book.

My eyes automatically flicked back up. Whoah. Draco Malfoy. In the library. My head spun, and without consciously willing them, my eyes locked on him.

And, for the first time, I thought of him as mine. A completely ludicrous statement – in all sense of the word, I was his bitch, the one who was incoherent at the sight of his body and fell victim to the trickery of his silvery eyes – but a fun delusion to entertain nonetheless.

So, since I was pretending he was mine, it was alright that I watched him. Although I tried to surreptitiously stare at him, flicking my eyes from text to him, I found that I spent more time admiring him that reading about the correct proportions in a antidote.

For a while I marveled at how he _walked_. Confidence was apparent in every step; each foot was placed surely on the stone floors, his strong hands swinging nonchalantly... I dissected every movement, my eyes sliding from his broad shoulders down his back, recalling the perfect muscles that I knew the white cloth must conceal...

I discovered, to my chagrin, that he was glancing back at me. After a few looks to his sides, and after assuring himself as I had myself that no one in the library was watching either of us, he strode over. I tried to feign innocence, looking back at the open book, but my eyes couldn't focus on the page.

There was a loud screech of the wooden chair being pulled across the gray stone floor as he sat down across from me and scooted inwards toward me. I felt his knee brush mine under the table and I quickly shied away. My face burned with a flush that gave me away; a slight shiver made me quickly avert my eyes from his face.

Damn. The phrase "way over my head" is a gross understatement.

A quick glance showed me he was amused: amused by my innocence, the way I avoided touching him by accident, the way I averted my eyes and hunched my shoulders nervously. He reached out and wrapped his hands around mine to remove the book from in front of my face, where I had held it like a shield. My hands may have well been made of clay; the book fell to the table from my limp fingers. I stared at him for a moment. Really stared. He was smirking, yes, but his gray eyes were strangely alluring, inviting me.

His hands still held mine, and pushed them to the table, allowing both of us to lean in, unconsciously, over our intertwined hands.

Knowing he was going to kiss me didn't help; rather, it made me more nervous, made me unable to move. It wasn't fear; I was no longer _afraid _of him. More I was terrified: terrified of the power he had over me.

Our lips had just barely touched when I heard a too-loud-for-the-library crash to my right. I turned my head, unwilling to move away from the Slytherin who sat in front of me, his body similarly drawn towards mine.

A red-faced Ron and a livid Harry were staring at the two of us, a stack of books, (probably gathered painstakingly to help me with my fabricated homework assignment) on the stone floor.

"Hermione?" Harry managed to choke out, bewildered. Ron's ears were pink, a sign of danger, and in his case, extreme embarrassment and anger.

"What do you want, Potter?" growled Draco. He was probably embarrassed as well, a emotion he masked with his abrasiveness. He was so close to me that I felt his warm, angry breath stir the hair behind my ear. I turned my head a fraction back towards him, only to move quickly back at Ron's expression.

"What did you _do_ to her?" Ron sounded horrified, his mind spinning crazy fantasies of _Imperio_ or Love Potions.

"Ron." My voice was surprisingly calm and didn't betray my inner-panic. "Please."

He stared for a moment, but Harry nodded.

"Just let it go," he murmured in Ron's pink ear.

The two of them slowly turned, and then quickly strode out of the library.

"Oh no," I murmured, biting my lip in agitation.

"Don't worry." How could he sound so soothing? "They'll forgive you. No one could possibly be mad at you."

"That's what you think," I whispered, suddenly aware that tears were collecting in my eyes. I didn't want him to notice (if he saw, would I lose him as well?), so I turned my face away from his. He was having none of that; his hand found my jaw and turned me back to face him.

"Don't worry," he murmured, smirking, a playful twinkle in his gray eyes. "I'm always right." I had to smile at that.

And this time when he kissed me, I decided what I, too, wanted. And he was sitting right across from me.


End file.
